Trail of destruction hits veg

It's been pretty windy here for the last few days and on my tour of inspection in the garden this morning I discovered that a tangle of Cherokee Trail of Tears was hanging loose from one of the wigwam poles. Winding it back up the pole was out of the question so all I could do was tie it tightly at the top. Hope it holds.

The crop, by the way, continues to be impressive and the product excellent to eat - far better tasting than the runner beans. Mind you, the French beans with lemon sauce I cooked the other night failed to find favour with Susan. She thought I'd put too much lemon juice on it, she's not a big fan.

I have decided I hate slugs. What's to like about them? Nothing. They have butchered another of the Red Russian tomatoes that was just coming ripe. In fact, one of the buggers was still on it when I got up in the morning. I might cut my losses with the other Red Russians and make green pickle out of them. I'm glad to say, though, that the other tomatoes seem to be going on well.

Oh! Mr Putin, what shall I do?

I spoke too soon. My humongous Red Russian tomato has come under attack from slugs and has had to be pulled off before fully reddening. Luckily, there was still a fair bit left after I cut out the damaged parts. But it's only fit for cooking now.

I actually caught one of the blighters at it the other evening and am now mounting a nightly guard on the others tomatoes, although it's true to say you have to go to bed sometime. I hope the next-door neighbours don't think I'm shining a torch at their bedroom.

My mate Steve says the Gloria Greenfingers instructional strip I came across in a 1950s Empire News contains advice that is all wrong. I have discovered that the newspaper went out of business in 1960 - serves them right.

Something troubles me

Intermittent rain for most of the day today reminds me of a troubling problem - slugs and snails. My lettuce has been severely mauled and the spinach slightly less so.

I have previously mused about what to do to repel these pests, rejecting the idea of nematodes (equivalent of introducing the rabbit to England, it seems to me) and Susan is firmly of the view I should not use slug pellets. They poison birds, she says, and I have since read that they do for hedgehogs too.

Other solutions such as digging trenches of beer seem a bit drastic, not to say expensive. What is a man to do?

I remain optimistic

Managed an inspection and a quick session with the hoe in the garden between showers today.

Really excited that little red buds have appeared on two of the runner beans. But, as I suspected, Susan has confirmed my fears that one of the others has become a victim of the slugs and died off.

Still no sign of flowers on the potatoes, a fortnight after they appeared on the ones I gave my friend Kate. They do appear to be growing, all the same, so there's hope yet.

A sluggish day

Sheltering indoors from the rain this morning, I muse over that old saying ne'er cast a clout...etc. We shouldn't really be surprised about English weather, but would do well to remember these adages. Wisdom in a sentence.

I also fell to thinking about slugs and nematodes. My mate Steve has filled me in on them and says they tried them once, some years ago. The result? "The slugs and snails were unaffected and we were poorer."

He goes on to give me the information that nematodes include the threadworms that infest cats and dogs and I tell him that I definitely won't be using them because of our pets. Ah, not so simple, says Steve.

The phylum Nematoda is vast. The intestinal parasites found in vertebrates are passed on via eggs in the host's faeces, and then ingested by another host. Some of the nematode species are very host specific, but others will infest a wide range of hosts. The slug killer only zaps the slimy bastards, with no effect on vertebrates. Some nematodes are plain weird: one species lives only in the felt beermats that were used in German bierkellars.

His technique is to clout slugs with a hammer. His wife Marianne says that's too brutal: she stands on them. End result is the same.

My plans for tomorrow include earthing up of the spuds now they have reached the suggested height of about 8in. The internet is a great invention and includes an incredibly handy video on the Videojug website.

I marvel at how I'm quite happy to look at it, yet would shun any TV programme called How To Earth Up Potatoes. Some 17,000 people have viewed it. Mind you, there have been 779,360 hits for their video on how to get out of the car without showing your knickers.

I suppose I ought to say that I resisted the temptation.

Danger lurks

Susan has again warned me of the possibility of slugs attacking the crops. Now comes news from the Guardian's allotment blog of their plot coming under attack from these pesky creatures. Even their rampant Cherokee Trail of Tears are being held in check, says the blog. Oh no, what if it happened to my precious Cherokee Trail of Tears?

The Guardian man's solution has been to use nematodes, something I have never heard of and will have to look up. I notice that someone has posted a comment on the blog describing nematodes as a microscopic species-specific parasite and that another poses the question of whether they are actually safe.

Still another person says they have used 'organic' slug pellets. Seems a contradiction in terms to me.

Green shoots of recovery

My friend Kate, who has recently moved from the south coast to Yorkshire and is establishing a garden at her new home, phoned the other day to say her potatoes are beginning to come through. Trouble is, I had given them to her - and mine were stubbornly not showing.

I was a bit jealous to say the least, and miffed. One day later, however, I was delighted to see my potato plants popping their heads above soil. Perhaps it's being a little closer to Pennine fastness that has caused the day. Susan has pointed out though, and I am well aware, that the next thing could be slugs eating the lot. I'm hoping that vigilance on my part will avoid the need for chemical warfare.

Turning my attention to the kitchen the other day, I made my very first lemon curd, just one jar in case it went wrong. Thanks to a recipe on the internet, however, I think it turned out rather well. Found myself making it while listening to Gardeners' Question Time on the radio.

More frosty thoughts

I've had the monthly email newsletter from the splendid allotment advice website run by John Harrison and he has something to say about the cold snap.

He writes: "There's a really hard frost on the ground, which is good news. A good cold winter is just what we want to kill off those slugs and other beasties that think we grow our crops for their benefit."

A positive way of looking at the weather, I feel. Hard on the slugs, though.

A proud day

Phew! Dodged the rain today and finally got my first seeds in - a bit of lettuce, rocket and spinach.

I'm a proud man, but I fully accept people will think I've been making heavy weather of this. Perhaps I have. But to me - a lazy, overweight slob - this is a landmark event.

Do I just sit back now and wait for food to grow? Or do I have to mount an armed guard to protect my land? It's a mixture of fingers crossed and keep checking for weeds and slugs, I guess.

I'm well satisfied, see how it goes before I get more ambitious. Dying to try out the Cherokee Trail of Tears seeds.